She had come in fuming, which was normal, but also fundamentally upset – a state he failed to recognize because he had never seen her in it before. Also, he was rereading James Dickey’s Deliverance, reveling again in how well Dickey had harnessed his poetic sensibility, at least that once, to narrative, and he had just gotten to the closing passages, where the unfortunate canoeists are trying to cover up both what they have done and what has been done to them. He had no idea that Ellen had just been forced to boot Shawna Deeson off the team, or that the two of them had had a screaming fight in the gym in front of the whole team – plus the boys’ basketball team, which was waiting their turn to practice their mediocre moves – or that Shawna Deeson had then gone outside and heaved a large rock at the windshield of Ellen’s Volvo, an act for which she would surely be suspended. He had no idea that Ellen was now blaming herself, and bitterly, because ‘she was supposed to be the adult.’

He heard that part – ‘I’m supposed to be the adult’ – and said Uh-huh for the fifth or sixth time, which was one time too many for Ellen Silverman. She plucked Deliverance from Wesley’s hands, threw it across the room, and said the words that would haunt him for the next lonely month:

‘Why can’t you just read off the computer, like the rest of us?’

‘She really said that?’ Don Allman asked, a remark that woke Wesley from a trancelike state. He realized he had just told the whole story to his officemate. He hadn’t meant to, but he had. There was no going back now.

‘She did. And I said, “That was a first edition I got from my father, you illiterate bitch.”’

Don Allman was speechless. He could only stare.

‘She walked out,’ Wesley said miserably. ‘I haven’t seen or spoken to her since.’

‘Haven’t even called to say you’re sorry?’

Wesley had tried to do this, and had gotten only her voicemail. He had considered going over to the house she rented from the college, but thought she might put a fork in his face … or some other part of his anatomy. Also, he didn’t consider what had happened to be entirely his fault. She hadn’t even given him a chance. Plus … she was illiterate, or close to it. Had told him once in bed that the only book she’d read for pleasure since coming to Moore was Reach for the Summit: The Definite Dozen System for Succeeding at Whatever You Do, by Tennessee Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt. She watched TV (mostly sports), and when she wanted to dig deeper into some news story, she went to The Drudge Report. She certainly wasn’t computer illiterate. She praised the Moore College Wi-Fi network (which was superlative rather than mediocre), and never went anywhere without her laptop slung over her shoulder. On the front was a picture of Tamika Catchings with blood running down her face from a split eyebrow and the legend I PLAY LIKE A GIRL.

Don Allman sat in silence for a few moments, tapping his fingers on his narrow chest. Outside their window, November leaves rattled across Moore Quadrangle. Then he said: ‘Did Ellen walking out have anything to do with that?’ He nodded to Wesley’s new electronic sidekick. ‘It did, didn’t it? You decided to read off the computer, just like the rest of us. To … what? Woo her back?’

‘No,’ Wesley said, because he didn’t want to tell the truth: in a way he still didn’t completely understand, he had done it to get back at her. Or make fun of her. Or something. ‘Not at all. I’m merely experimenting with new technology.’

‘Right,’ said Don Allman. ‘And I’m Robert Frost, stopping by the woods on a snowy fucking evening.’

His car was in Parking Lot A, but Wesley elected to walk the two miles back to his apartment, a thing he often did when he wanted to think. He trudged down Moore Avenue, first past the fraternity houses, then past apartment houses blasting rock and rap from every window, then past the bars and takeout restaurants that serve as a life-support system for every small college in America. There was also a bookstore specializing in used texts and last year’s bestsellers offered at fifty percent off. It looked dusty and dispirited and was often empty.

Because people were home reading off the computer, Wesley assumed.

Brown leaves blew around his feet. His briefcase banged against one knee. Inside were his texts, the current book he was reading for pleasure (2666, by Roberto Bolanõ), and a bound notebook with beautiful marbleized boards. This had been a gift from Ellen on the occasion of his birthday.

‘For your book ideas,’ she had said.

In July, that was, when things between them had still been swell and they’d had the campus pretty much to themselves. The blank book had over two hundred pages, but only the first one had been marked by his large, flat scrawl.

At the top of the page (printed) was: IDEAS FOR THE NOVEL!

Below that was: A young boy discovers that his father and mother are both having affairs

And

A young boy, blind since birth, is kidnapped by his lunatic grandfather who

And

A teenager falls in love with his best friend’s mother and

Below this one was the final idea, written shortly after Ellen had thrown Deliverance across the room and stalked out of his life.

A shy but dedicated small college instructor and his athletic but largely illiterate girlfriend have a falling-out after

It was probably the best idea – write what you know, all the experts agreed on that – but he simply couldn’t go there. Talking to Don had been hard enough. And even then, complete honesty had escaped him. Like not having said how much he wanted her back.

As he approached the three-room flat he called home – what Don Allman sometimes called his ‘swinging bachelor pad’ – Wesley’s thoughts turned to the Henderson kid. Was his name Richard or Robert? Wesley had a block about that, not the same as the block he had about fleshing out any of the fragmentary mission-statements for his novel, but probably related. He had an idea all such blocks were basically hysterical in nature, as if the brain detected (or thought it detected) some nasty interior beast and had locked it in a cell with a steel door. You could hear it thumping and jumping in there like a rabid raccoon that would bite if approached, but you couldn’t see it.

The Henderson kid was on the football team – a noseback or point guard or some such thing – and while he was as horrible on the gridiron as any of them, he was a nice kid and a fairly good student. Wesley liked him. But still, he had been ready to tear the boy’s head off when he spotted him in class with what Wesley assumed was a PDA or a newfangled cell phone. This was shortly after Ellen had walked out. In those early days of the breakup, Wesley often found himself up at three in the morning, pulling some literary comfort food down from the shelf: usually his old friends Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, their adventures recounted by Patrick O’Brian. And not even that had kept him from remembering the ringing slam of the door as Ellen left his life, probably for good.

So he was in a foul mood and more than ready for backtalk as he approached Henderson and said, ‘Put it away. This is a literature class, not an Internet chat room.’

The Henderson kid had looked up and given him a sweet smile. It hadn’t lifted Wesley’s foul mood, but it did dissolve his anger on contact. Mostly because he wasn’t an angry man by nature. He supposed he was depressive by nature, maybe even dysthymic. Hadn’t he always suspected that Ellen Silverman was too good for him? Hadn’t he known, in his heart of hearts, that the doorslam had been waiting for him from the very beginning, when he’d spent the evening talking to her at a boring faculty party? Ellen played like a girl; he played like a wimp. He couldn’t even stay mad at a student who was goofing with his pocket computer (or Nintendo, or whatever it was) in class.